Tag: koi pond

When you are done with the bulk of pond building tasks, it feels like you have your weekends back. Pond builder and I went out for bike rides, out to eat and just tooled around. I spent some time filming with my new GoPro5. It is the best GoPro so far (I’ve been using the…

Last year, the pond builder took me to beautiful Lake Louise for my birthday and I ended up with 26 stitches due to a horse riding accident. This year the pond builder gave me some beautiful koi – fishes are better than stitches. The beautiful koi from Mystic Koi, Upland, California flew in today via…

The pond builder is exhausted. This weekend he toiled under the hot sun around the lower pond. I can hear the local fireworks outside, but the pond builder is falling asleep. You might be wondering why we’re working outside all the time but it really is our hobby. We enjoy puttering around the yard and…

Just over a week ago, we had barely finished the lower pond area to be somewhat presentable to our guests. Lots of dirt areas covered with mulch, some areas just dirt and rocks, but in general it was okay. This weekend we tackled the landscaping and while it’s not finished, we’re quite pleased by the…

Feeding the koi is always a concern since you want big, fat koi and in Minnesota the growing time is somewhat limited due to temperature. Over the weekend we talked a lot about feeding and Michael Hernandez of Tomigai koi food recommended to us – 2% of the koi body weight. While we have warm…

The lower pond build site is not the most attractive part of the yard but I’m excited to report that the lower pond is almost ready to be home for the koi that are still in the garage. We’re thinking they should be out here before the weekend. Summer has turned on over night so…

Winter seems really long in Minnesota. Spring seems to turn everything green overnight and the plants come back to life pretty quickly. We’re still in the middle of opening up our ponds. The upper pond filtration equipment is being redone and the koi might come out of the garage this week. The lower pond re-do…

It’s Fall now and I feel I have missed a great deal of the beautiful Minnesota summer this year. I certainly have been a little behind in posting, so I’m going to play catch up. Mostly photos but read the captions… First up is a video of the koi taken about a week ago. All…

Our lower pond has been taken over by string algae! The algae had gotten so thick it was clogging up the bottom drain. The pond digger decided that drastic action needed to be taken and he drained the pond. Over ten hours, he thoroughly scrubbed the walls of string algae. While the pond was being…

They’re finally here – Konishi karashigoi! Tony, the pond digger, watched a little video two years ago about the Konishi karashigoi that grow to be 400 pounds. He increased the depth of the pond and changed up many filtration features to grow his “little porpoises.” Last year, Tony talked to Kevin Pham of Genki Nishikigoi,…

Another pleasant day outside working on smaller garden projects. So far this weekend, the pond digger has redone a portion of the fence sections, cleaned up/recycled old pond liner, cleaned up the wood scrap pile, spread at least 15 bags of pea gravel, replanted a number of plants for me and made a grape vine…

It’s not even July 1 and our major pond structures and landscaping are done. It’s actually unsettling to have all this time to do more bike riding, hang around, relax more…the pond digger is having a little work withdrawal symptoms. However, I can not say enough about our contractor. He promised us a July finish…

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About me…

I grew up in Southern California and graduated from the United States Military Academy (West Point) in 1982. I was commissioned a military intelligence officer and served with XVIII ABN Corps (Fort Bragg, NC), 82d ABN Div (Fort Bragg, NC) and 42d FA Bde (Germany). I hold a master's degree in early childhood special education and an administrative endorsement in educational supervision.

I moved to Minnesota in 2010 and married a man who happens to enjoy digging holes and constructing waterfalls. I envision that every spring and summer will be spent puttering around a koi pond. Aside from koi, I enjoy starting random hobbies (trapeze lessons, pottery, sumi-e), gardening, reading a good book, drinking tea and a thousand other things that won't fit into this text box.

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koi and other things I like - follow me on Instagram at #lorivertin

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